Sins Of The Father

During Good Friday Mass this year, the Preacher to the Papal Household compared criticism of the Catholic Church, over its handling of abuse allegations, to historical persecution of Jews. He later apologized, but that didn't stop the dean of cardinals at the Vatican from referring – on Easter Sunday – to media coverage of the scandals as "petty gossip." National Catholic Reporter correspondent John Allen says the Church’s defensiveness and finger-pointing is only hurting its image.

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Shrines & S**t

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**Your latest broadcast “Sins Of The Father”, however, was disgraceful!! **

Oh, Come on John T....get off it...it was a fine report.

**Catholic Church, I was shocked to hear you give credence to the extremely biased, National Catholic Reporte**

Whats funny is that to those on the Right, NCR is blaspehmous! To those on the Left, it's "extremely bias"? They must be doing something right! ;-)

**Where is the evidence that the pope has been at the forefront of "reform"**

They never said he was at the forefront of "reform" in general...just in regards to sexual abuse. While he may not have gone far enough, he is the only Pope who has taken virtually ANY action in this area. And, be it said, it was mostly because it was happenning under his watch that he had to deal with it.

**You should have challenged Mr. Allen when he claimed

“there is no figure at the senior level of the Catholic church who has done more to promote an aggressive response to the problem of sexual abuse by clergy than the present pope.” **

OK..here's the challenge John T. Is there someone at the senior level who has done more? I think most senior level of the Church would rather brush it off.

**In reality, the pope has never provided leadership in the fight against sexual abuse by clergy. **

He has still done more than any of his predecessors. Maybe not enough for you....but more than his predecessors, which makes the statement true.

I am a long time subscriber to your OTM podcasts and, until today’s episode, I’ve found them to be outstanding. In previous programs you consistently challenged guests when they were not telling the truth.

Your latest broadcast “Sins Of The Father”, however, was disgraceful!!

While I expect to hear broadcast news cover up sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, I was shocked to hear you give credence to the extremely biased, National Catholic Reporter, by having one of their correspondents, John Allen, on the program. To add insult to injury, you even repeated some of the nonsense the Catholic Church is attempting to pass off as fact. Specifically, you said:

“…Pope Benedict has really been at the forefront of the reform in the church’s behavior with respect to child abuse allegations. …”

Where is the evidence that the pope has been at the forefront of reform?

To the contrary, while he was the Vatican’s enforcer of faith, Cardinal Ratzinger ardently fought any and all reform movements. As pope he has continued to implement extreme conservative doctrine in every area including reform of child abuse.

You should have challenged Mr. Allen when he claimed

“there is no figure at the senior level of the Catholic church who has done more to promote an aggressive response to the problem of sexual abuse by clergy than the present pope.”

In reality, the pope has never provided leadership in the fight against sexual abuse by clergy. Worldwide anger over the widely publicized sexual abuse cases forced him to take the minimal action that he has.